The Corporation of Brown University approved the appointment of five faculty affiliated with the Carney Institute to endowed professorships in the calendar year of 2019. Below is a list of those faculty members and information about their research. 

Wael Asaad, Sidney A. Fox and Dorothea Doctors Fox Associate Professor of Ophthalmology, Visual Sciences, and Neuroscience

Asaad’s lab seeks to improve understanding of the basic neural mechanisms of learning, and to apply this knowledge to alleviate the cognitive and motor sequelae of human neurological illness and injury. His clinical interests include functional neurosurgery—including deep brain stimulation—epilepsy surgery, psychiatric neurosurgery, traumatic brain injury, and gamma knife radiosurgery.

Kevin Bath, Joukowsky Assistant Professor of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences

Bath’s research focuses on understanding how adverse experiences encountered early in life alter the trajectory of neural development and the genetic mechanisms supporting those changes. Through an evolutionary lens, the Bath Lab seeks to understand how changes in the timing of regional brain development support the proximate goals of survival and reproduction, with implications for expressions of pathological behavior in the instance of a mismatch between the rearing context and the context an animal subsequently finds itself in. 

Lorin Crawford, RGSS Assistant Professor of Biostatistics

Crawford’s scientific research interests involve the development of novel and efficient computational methodologies to address complex problems in statistical genetics, cancer pharmacology, and radiomics, including cancer imaging. Crawford has an extensive background in modeling massive data sets of high-throughput molecular information as it pertains to functional genomics and cellular-based biological processes. Machine learning and nonparametric regression-based techniques have been a significant part of his work. Recently, the Crawford Lab has worked on developing methods that take significant steps towards solving the computational costs and interpretability limitations while studying nonlinear interactions among features in genetic association studies.

Theresa Desrochers, Rosenberg Assistant Professor of Brain Science and Neuroscience

Desrochers’ research focuses on understanding the mechanisms of cognitive sequence control. In humans, she employs functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and cognitively demanding tasks. In animals, she conducts high-density recordings in a subset of parallel tasks, and bridges these models formally using animal fMRI.

Yu-Wen Alvin Huang, GLF Translational Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry

Huang’s lab seeks to understand the molecular and cellular fundamentals surrounding neurodegeneration and aging process in the brain, aiming for future translation into much-needed therapeutics. Their goal is to further advance state-of-the-art technologies for Alzheimer’s disease and beyond, pushing the boundary of modeling capability for brain physiology and pathology.